As the transition to our new home began to set in for our son, his actions started to reach a sort of middle ground and he was getting time outs less and less. Things changed on his second birthday. He seemed to age overnight. His language exploded with his simple sentences turning into paragraphs. He also started to find another level to his independence and started pulling the overtly defiant card. While he was going to time out without any argument, after his birthday he started to contest his time outs with whiny tantrums. His cousin taught him the word “no” and he started using it whenever we asked him not to do a particular action. It would have been really easy to let the consequences slide. It was tempting to just let his behavior go without checking him, but we knew that this was not an option. There were several weeks of back to back time outs. He eventually came around with more consistently improved behavior. Around Christmas, he had received lots of very fun and very messy toys. We had approached the point where our two year old needed to learn to clean up one activity, whether it be drawing, playdoh, blocks, books, cars, puzzles etc, before starting another. Once again the defiant card came out to play. While time outs were still working, we felt that it was time for his consequences to hit closer to his infraction: If you do not pick up your toys/activity you will lose the privilege of playing with it. Once he lost the privilege, we would remind him when he asked to play the item lost why he could not play with it. After what seemed like weeks (maybe even months) the loss of playthings set in and he was much better about picking up his toys. The disciplinary evolution continues. We do not know what the future will hold, but we do the consistent consequences for bad behavior is important!
